As a history-loving little boy, Gettysburg History President and CEO Andrew Dalton couldn’t have imagined it.
“There I was sitting in a room with Ken Burns, Martin Sheen, and Susan Eisenhower,” says Dalton. Burns is the world-renowned filmmaker whose works include the groundbreaking documentary The Civil War. Sheen is an actor whose roles have included playing General Lee in the movie Gettysburg. And Eisenhower is the granddaughter of Dwight D. Eisenhower, WWII general, and president of the United States. All three were recent participants at the Gettysburg Film Festival.
“I had to take a moment and say to them, ‘This is such an honor,’” recalls Dalton, who is the producer and one of the founders of the film festival. At that moment, Burns could have replied with a thank you and left it at that, but he didn’t. Instead, he said to Dalton, “No, honestly, it’s an honor to be with you here. All the work that you’ve done has made a huge difference.”
“It was a surreal moment,” Dalton said.
Not yet 30 years old, Dalton has taken his love of Gettysburg history and history itself and done some remarkable things with it. As the president and CEO of Gettysburg History, a recent rebranding of the Adams County Historical Society (ACHS), he has overseen the establishment of a new historical society facility, which includes the Beyond the Battle Museum. The museum was named by USA Today as the best new museum in the country. Then there is the film festival, an idea by Dalton and local filmmaker Jake Boritt, with the enthusiastic support and collaboration of Burns. The festival celebrated its third year this past spring and is the only one in the nation dedicated to historical films.
Sometimes a moment just needs the right man, and Dalton has been that for Gettysburg.
“He has this energy and this passion to get things done,” says Ben Neely, former executive director of ACHS. “And he gets other people excited about it.”
Dalton’s love affair with local history began as he walked the battlefield with his father. “We moved here when he was four,” said his mother, Kathleen Iannello, a retired Gettysburg College professor of political science. “He was immediately fascinated by the monuments on the battlefield and wanted to know what they were about. His father would often take him out on the weekend. They sort of made a little project of photographing each of the monuments and then learning a little bit more about each of them.”
Playtime included his budding interest in history as well. “He loved setting up plastic soldiers on the floor,” says Iannello. “He came to the point where he would have depictions of the battle perfect and correct.”
Dalton may have grasped the historical facts, but he also loved the stories. Not surprising, given his father, Terence Dalton, was a journalist and a journalism professor who had majored in history in college. “He always had a story,” said Dalton of his father, who passed away in 2017. “He was a great dad. Without him, I don’t think I would have found what I really love.”
Dalton’s interest in Gettysburg history never wavered. “By middle school, I would go to the visitor’s center and buy books at the gift shop,” he said.
One of those books was Bradley Gottfried’s Brigades of Gettysburg. “It took me about a year and a half to read the whole thing. The book is literally organized by each brigade. I would carry it around with me at school. I remember my friends teasing me about it, ‘Why are you reading this giant book?’ ”
Within that book was the mention of a young girl and her account of her house being burned down by the Confederates. Her name was Amelia Harmon. “The farm would have been right around the corner from my house,” he said. “It lit a spark. And I became obsessed with understanding how the battle unfolded in my neighborhood.”
Dalton says he felt a connection with the young girl. “She was about my age when this happened. So, I found her account, and I remember reading it, and my imagination ran wild, visualizing what she was talking about. I could see it through her eyes. I went down a multi-year rabbit hole trying to find out everything I possibly could.”
Dalton would discover that after the attack, the property would go on to become home to a medicinal spring and then the Gettysburg Country Club, which was frequented by President Eisenhower, who owned a farm in Gettysburg.
That rabbit hole would lead to the publication of Dalton’s first book, Beyond the Run: The Emanuel Harmon Farm at Gettysburg, when he was only 16 years old.
It was during these years that Dalton was also becoming well acquainted with the local historical society. “I had never been in an archive. There were shelves and shelves going up as high as I could see of records, boxes, and artifacts. It just blew me away.”
Then there were the people he encountered, like Tim Smith. Smith, a longtime licensed battlefield guide and the author of books and articles on the conflict, is recognized as one of the leading experts on the battle.
“The first time I really went in to do research, my mom took me, and Tim was at the desk,” said Dalton. “I was starstruck.”
Smith, currently director of education for ACHS, doesn’t remember that first encounter. But the two have become well-acquainted since. “He was my research assistant,” said Smith. “Now, he’s my boss.”
By the time he was in high school, Dalton was volunteering at ACHS and went on to join the staff as an employee in 2016. While volunteering, he would be tasked with going through the same boxes that had so amazed him on his first visit.
One day, Dalton discovered something very special. “He came to me and said, ‘Is this what I think it is?’” said Neely. “I said, ‘Yeah, it is.’”
Dalton had found an original program from President Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address with personal business accounts scribbled on it by the original owner. There are only a handful of copies of the program in existence, with the Smithsonian having one. And now the Beyond the Battle Museum has one too.
At the museum, Dalton points to the exhibit of the program with great pride. “I like the fact that it has the numbers scribbled on it,” he said. “Paper was not easy to come by back then. It tells a story.”
And he now has a story of his own. “I am sure he will be telling it for the rest of his life,” said Neely of Dalton’s find. “As he should.”
After graduating from Gettysburg College in 2019, Dalton, who majored in both political science and history, was looking to enter the political world. “I was going to join a presidential campaign,” he said.
Around this time, Neely had decided to take another job and leave his role as ACHS executive director. He asked if Dalton would step in for him on a temporary basis. “I was thinking just a month or so,” said Dalton.
Fate and Neely had other plans.
“I encouraged some of the board members to make that decision,” said Neely of officially naming Dalton as his replacement. “I told them, ‘Take that leap of faith and it will pay off.’”
The board would take Neely’s advice, and Dalton would go on to be named as permanent executive director and later CEO and president of ACHS. At the top of the list of initiatives for Dalton was a new home for ACHS, which was then located in a Victorian house ill-suited for its needs.
There had long been a discussion about finding the historical society a new home. “I didn’t come up with the idea,” says Dalton. However, “Andrew would push it past the finish line,” said Neely.
Building a new facility would require money, and that meant fundraising. “I had no experience with this,” Dalton said.
Not to worry. “He has this way with people,” Neely said. For instance, Dalton encouraged locals to invest in their own personal history. “We did genealogies,” Smith said.
Those like Adams County Commissioner Randy Phiel were impressed. “Andrew has a knack for digging up some of your Adams County family history to reel you in,” Phiel said. “It worked with me. I had a relative, Emmanuel Trostel, who was taken prisoner by the Confederates and spent 22 months in Confederate prisons.”
The campaign raised $12 million, and the facility broke ground in 2021. As construction got underway, no one relished updates more than Dalton’s own grandfather, who was a builder. The two were close, especially after Dalton lost his father. “He filled that role for me,” Dalton said. Unfortunately, his grandfather would never see the completion of the project, passing away at 94 as the “walls were just going up.” On the day of his burial, the funeral procession drove past the work-in-progress.
The fireproof, climate-controlled structure opened its doors in 2022. In addition to the Beyond the Battle Museum, the facility also includes the Dr. Charles H. Glatfelter Research Room and Archives, which preserves over 5,000 square feet of historical materials. Glatfelter was a former ACHS executive director and highly regarded historian. During its first year, the museum and history center welcomed more than 30,000 visitors and hosted more than 50 events.
The idea of the museum was to tell the whole story of Adams County’s history. “The museum is about the history of the place and the people, and it includes the battle, but goes beyond that,” Dalton said. “We can use Gettysburg as a way to look at all American history.”
As the new home for the historical society was becoming a reality, Gettysburg also hosted its first-ever film festival in 2023. The festival is the result of a suggestion made by local filmmaker Jake Boritt, now festival director, to Ken Burns. The initial event focused on the works of Burns. The second festival included not only Burns but also other actors such as Sam Waterston and Martin Sheen. This past year’s theme was focused on World War II, while next year will be about the American Revolution as America celebrates its 250th birthday.
On top of the new facility and film festival, the historical society earlier this year assumed ownership and management of the Shriver House Museum, which tells the story of one family’s experience before, during, and after the Battle of Gettysburg. Plans are being made for the Gettysburg Black History Museum as well.
With so much happening so fast and so successfully, ACHS announced this summer that it was rebranding itself as Gettysburg History in an effort to expand its national outreach.
“Gettysburg History is the banner under which all of this lives,” says Dalton of the projects, events, and initiatives that have taken place recently, as well as those which may take place in the future.
And Dalton has been there for it all.
“I’m very lucky that I grew up in a place where this kind of path is available,” he said of his work, his vision, and the history he loves.
Photo by Rick Gregory
Lisa Gregory is an experienced journalist whose articles have appeared in publications nationally and internationally including the Washington Post and U.S. News and World Report. She is also a frequent contributor to Frederick Magazine, Hagerstown Magazine and Carroll Magazine, among others. A published author of fiction, she has short stories in the books, “For the Love of Gettysburg” and “On Hallowed Ground.”
Andrew is amazing and has accomplished so much; this story summarizes his work beautifully.
What a wonderful article about Andrew Dalton. Thank you Lisa Gregory.
This is a great story. Not knowing Andrew, myself, it was fascinating and heartening to see how a child’s interest and vision directly led him to his role today. Our town’s backbone is history, obviously, and learning about Dalton’s own serves to enrich Gettysburg’s in its own small way, like many, many other stories have in the past.
And the Lincoln’s Address program bit… brilliant.
What a terrific article highlighting a tremendous visionary. Thank you.